


Float

by Enchantable



Series: Search and Recover [1]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: F/M, Graphic Description, Injury, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-17
Updated: 2013-08-17
Packaged: 2017-12-23 19:52:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/930415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enchantable/pseuds/Enchantable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Getting out of the anteverse was the easy part</p>
            </blockquote>





	Float

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Raleigh is hurt after the battle and for whatever reason it takes the helicopters a while to get there. Mako has to keep him alive and/or talking until help gets there.

She’s so relieved that he’s alive when he tells her he can’t breathe because she’s holding him tightly she isn’t even mad.

They wind up on top of the pod, straddling it. Mako knows help is on it’s way, but as she and Raleigh share the same air, their foreheads pressed together she can’t be bothered to give a damn. It’s over, it’s finally over but even the impossible weight of that doesn’t seem to register as his breath comes hot on her face. 

Except she calms and he doesn’t. 

Her eyes open to see his features are peaceful. Too peaceful. His breath is heavy but when she looks she sees how pale he is. Suddenly her heart is somewhere around her ankles as she reaches out and places her hands on his shoulders, steadying him as she leans back. His entire weight seems to sag forward and her eyes widen. She barely manages to guide him until he’s laying back without flipping over the pod. 

"Raleigh, Raleigh," she says his name low and urgently. 

"We did it," he says and she can see his lips are the only part of him that isn’t pale. 

Her eyes widen before she pushes off the pod, swimming to the opening where she ripped off the hatch. Her fingers fumble for the kit stored inside and it takes her another attempt before she undoes the latch and pulls it free. She jumps back up onto the pod, situating herself by his head as she tears open the kit and finds the small screwdriver she’s looking for. 

"What’re you—"

"It’s alright," she says, aligning it with the first of the screws and setting to work. It’s when she gets to his right side that he groans. Her fingers press against his side. His armor is wet and she knows it isn’t from the water. She wants to unscrew it, to rip it apart but she knows that the compression might be the only thing that’s keeping him alive. 

Instead she grabs his helmet and pulls it on. Hers is far away but his comm link still works fine. 

"This is Mori," she says, “Becket is injured. I repeat, Becket is injured. We need help, now."

"Mori, what’s his condition."

"He’s bleeding out," she says.

"Mori listen to me, do not remove his armor. Help’s going to be there soon—"

She doesn’t listen to the rest of it because Raleigh’s eyes have closed and before she knows it she’s ripped the helmet off and thrown it to the side. It goes against protocol, it brings her one step closer to everything she accused him of being. But right now the world has narrowed to a single point and all she can focus on are the increasingly unsteady breaths escaping Raleigh’s lips.

"Raleigh!" she shouts his name and nearly falls off with relief when his features tighten before his eyes open, “you have to stay awake," she tells him. 

His eyes are open but his pupils are blown wide. She knows he isn’t laying there. Not really. 

"I have to get her out," he gasps and her heart seems to clench. Her fingers tighten on his armor as she feels him begin to tremble, “She can’t die in here." 

Everything seems to clench at his words and she knows he’s back in Gipsy’s cockpit, preparing to save the world. There are malfunctions and sparks and so much pressure, but his focus is on getting her out. Mako knows he’s succeeded, the second escape pod floating away is proof of that. But his eyes are on some invisible point, some far off place and she knows he doesn’t understand he’s already succeeded. 

"You have to get out too," she tells him instead, emotion overpowering her and reverting her back to Japanese, “both pilots have to get out." 

"Yancy didn’t," he gasps out. 

Her eyes squeeze shut before she forces them back open. They’re already full of tears. She knows Yancy as well as Raleigh does, knows him as Raleigh does. His death is a vicious ache in her chest. But she knows it is not purely her ache. No more than the raw pain in his chest is her loss. She has her own monsters, her own demons. Now she has his as well. It’s part of the drift, part of the burden they share. It’s twice as heavy, twice as all encompassing. 

But you aren’t supposed to bear it alone. 

Whether or not they ever drift again, Raleigh is a part of her now. He’s seen her kna way she doesn’t know if anyone else ever will—and she doesn’t want them too. It’s not just that they’ve drifted, it’s that he understands. He understands everything she never has the words to say. Understands every shameful feeling she fights to control, every awful impulse, every dark corner. He’s been through the tunnel she’s lost in and she knows she’s pushed him out the other side. But a part of her still feels lost. And as shameful as it is to admit, she needs him to show her how to get out. 

"You did," she tells him. 

"Shouldn’t have," he slurs out, “should have died with him. With Gipsy." 

She fights the block in her throat as she looks down at him. She knows its the blood loss and the oxygen deprivation that’s stealing his control, that what he’s saying shouldn’t matter. But it guts her like she’s the one with a wound. His eyes close and open again, struggling to focus on what’s going on. One of Mako’s hands lifts up and smoothes back his hair, resting on his forehead. His eyes move over to her and she shifts him to get a better grip. 

"You’re okay," she lies, her words choked and garbled, “We made it out." 

"That’d be more believable—" he gasped out, “if you weren’t crying." 

She bites her lip hard, looking down at his face. She listens for the sound of the helicopters but can only hear the unsteady sound of him breathing and her pulse racing in her ears. She thinks she’s cried more over the past few days than she has in her entire life. But there is so much weight in her head now, so many new feelings and memories she can barely sort through all of them. And the person who understands, who knows her better than she knows herself now, is slipping away in her arms. 

"Mako," he breathes her name. 

She bites back a sound as she sees him loosing focus. Her fingers are tight against the plating of his armor as though if she holds on tight enough she can keep him close. Logically she knows she can’t. But her fingers still try, ignoring the guilt she feels when a sound escapes ghe back of his throat as his body tenses for a moment. Even a blind man could see how much pain he’s in, how exahusted he is. And for a moment she wonders if it’s selfish for her to grip him so tight, to try so hard to keep him with her. if it wouldn’t be better to let him go. 

The thought is gone as soon as it comes. People letting Raleigh go is what’s gotten them in this position. People thinking that letting go is alright, that the other person will be fine and strong without them. Mako’s seen where that road leads and drinking herself silly on a stupid fucking wall is not something she has any interest in. She shifts him to get a hand free and grabs the small knife included in the kit. 

"You’ve gotta stay with me," she tells him first in Japanese and then in English as she cuts the wrists of her suit to get her hands free and then slides the knife through the exposed part of his suit, sliding a hand inside 

There’s so much blood. 

She’s spent most of her life on military bases. She’s not a squeemish person. But it’s Raleigh’s blood and somehow that makes it worse. She shoves back the feeling and slides her hands along the hard ridges of muscle, feeling for the source of the bleeding. Its a short, gaping wound and next to it she can feel something hard. Something stuck inside him. She doesn’t know what to do about that, but she knows what to do with the open one. She slides her hand out and grabs what she’s looking for from the kit. 

"I’m sorry," she whispers, adjusting her other arm around him and tightening her legs around the pod as she slides her hand through his suit again and angles the packet. 

"What are you—" he cuts himself off with a broken cry as she activates it and the smell of burning flesh fills the air. 

He’s trembling and barely coherent when the medics get there and Mako wants to kill them all. She settles for breaking someone’s nose when they try to put her in another chopper. Two of the medics are older and when they look at her they seem to know exactly what she’s thinking. They let her on board as they get to work. She crouches by him as they cut off his armor and rip open his suit. When she sees the damage in its entirety she barely gets the bucket the medics hand her in time. 

Except the mind shes with is blank. She thinks it’s the only explanation for how horrifyingly numb she feels. How still she is as she watches them insert a tube down his throat and slide needles through his skin. They’re ten minutes out when his heart stops. They rip his wired suit off faster than she thinks is possible to shock him back to life. It takes three times and she feels like she’s the one whose heart has stopped as his body jerks with electricity. 

There is no time for her to argue when they rip him away. 

The adrenaline is seeping out of her and there’s an odd buzzing in her ears. She doesnt know if she’s made things better or worse. All she can see are the doors where they took him. All she can feel is the blood on her hands. She steps forward towards the doors, determined to follow him. But her legs are like jelly and when she steps forward the floor rushes up to meet her and it all goes black.


End file.
